Brown addresses budget woes, Cabinet picks in first town hall

Northampton County executive holds town hall-style forum in Bangor.

Northampton County Executive John Brown returned Monday to Bangor, where he served as mayor, for the first in a series of town hall-style events throughout the county.

Brown said his outreach so far has been internal, hosting brown bag lunches with employees and meeting with unions, and he wanted to venture out "to really give you a chance to ask questions you want to know about the county," he said.

"Either you come to the county for services, or you work for the county," he said. "And if you don't do either, [county government] is kind of just this black hole."

About 20 county residents turned out for the evening session, where Brown talked about everything from his management style to the county's fiscal woes to encouraging small town business development.

For the most part, his hometown gave him a warm reception.

"I'm still of the opinion that you're the right guy to lead us here," Bangor Councilman David Houser said. "You really haven't changed your M.O. You're doing the same things for the county that you did for the borough, and I would ask everyone to have a little bit of patience."

Bangor resident Mike Ortoski said he felt the Slate Belt finally had some representation among the "bigwigs" from Easton and Bethlehem.

"Now we feel like we do have a voice down there," he told Brown. "We never felt that before."

Residents probed Brown about his priorities as executive and challenged some of the decisions he's made in his first three months in office.

Former Bangor Mayor Duane Miller challenged Brown, a Republican, to work more closely with council's GOP majority, which hasn't always been in lock step with the new executive.

They're new relationships and not everyone is on the same page yet, Brown replied, adding that they're working on building a relationship and rapport.

He outlined his primary focuses in righting Gracedale nursing home, revamping the Public Works Department, and improving the work environment for the county's 2,200 employees. Northampton County has a $18 million budget hole this year, which is plugged with some of the county's $30 million in reserve funds.

That leaves the county in a precarious place for 2015, Brown said. "If I just lock down spending where it is today, I'm already starting $6 million in the hole."

To that end, he is "methodically" going through every department, he said, and identifying incremental changes along the way.

"It's a little early to say what that's going to look like on a balance sheet at the end of the year," he said.

Brown defended his most recent Cabinet pick, Bangor Council President Catherine Allen, to Easton resident Sandra O'Brien-Werner, who questioned Allen's qualifications as director of administration, the executive's second-in-command. Director of Administration Tom Harp, appointed by former Executive John Stoffa, is resigning effective May 2.

He interviewed dozens of people over the past few months, and Allen has the right attitude and chemistry for his team, Brown said. "I trust her implicitly or I wouldn't have put her up for the role. I need to have the faith and confidence of anybody coming into the administration, and I don't think you can get this just out of a bachelor's degree."